This is another Gewurzt from Columbia Valley. It's is very fruity as well, but sweeter and slightly more acidic than the Silver lake. I still like this very much, especially with the thai curry that we were having. It's not quite as balanced as the Silver Lake, but I would give this one an 86.

I ordered this from a bar. I don't know what year it was. The was a well balanced white wine. I think the best white I've had so far. It's fruity, medium bodied, not very sweet, and not too much Oak. I like this, and it'll encourage me to try more whites in the future. I give it a 90.

This is a red wine from South Africa - it doesn't say what grape. It's very mosy, yeah, like mose from the garden or something - Very moist vegetationy kind of nose. It definitely has a big vegatable component. It's a light bodied wine. So it doesn't go particularly well with the cheese I am having now. The mosy smell and taste is a bit weird for me. This for me is not that brilliant, so I'll give it an 82.

This merlot had a very strong nose. Smells of cherry, and perfume. On the tongue it's very balanced. I didn't feel any disjointedness, and it was very pleasant to drink. We had it with our chicken wings and some cheese. I give it 89 points.

Another in my quest to find a white that I like. This one I am much more favorable about. A lot of fregrancy on the nose, very citrisy, orange/lemon kind of nose, as well as a very floral smell. On the palate it is a bit soapy at first taste, it's much more subtle than many other whites I have had before on the buttery/preserved egg after taste. The smell plus the flavor on the tongue at first is very sweet and fragrancy, which makes it go very well with fragrancy(herby or spicy) or sweet foods. I'll give this one a 88. It's one of my favorite whites so far.

Thought we'd give hungarian wine a try. This wine started out very candy-like on the nose, but after decanting for a couple of hours that died down a bit and it became a very veggie nose, very bland, almost smelled like tea. On the palette was very bland as well, again, veggie, almost like a V8 drink. I thought the taste just didn't integrate well for me. Weilai and I both give it a 70.

We bought this wine tonight for Chinese New Year. It was pretty good at the beginning. We didn't have time to decant it. Really sweet on the nose and on the palate, but also had a full body. Weilai liked it. I liked it too. But as the time passed, it got more sour. I am not really sure why this is. Maybe someone can chime in?

Update: This was 04 from South Easern Austtralia.

Going to branch out a bit in my quest to find a white wine that I like, and try the German Reislings, because Gary told me to =) This one is an 06. I got a lot more nose after I switched to a smaller glass, the one for tasting white wines. This Reisling is sweet, and sour. So much so that it tastes almost like some kind of lemon extract/syrupy kinda thing. The buttery oak flavor that I don't like is still there, but toned down. The flavor is very tropical and fruity. Not too different than the last German Reisling I tasted, so I am actually a bit disappointed. The score I'll give it is 87.

Buttery and a bit of a soapy nose. Do decant your wine! The butteriness was toned down a lot after it was decanted. On the palate, it was sweet and sour, a bit of lemon a pear, and soap. Still some butteriness I don't like, but not nearly as much as some Chardonays I've had in the past. I give this one an 83.

This wine was a gift from a friend and from a google search it showed up as $10.99.
This wine was sweet on the nose and on the palate. Not sweet like fruit juice, more like syrup, which is different. I would say it tastes a bit like a cherry syrup. I like it and give it a 90. It's different, and pretty smooth, not so over the top.

We took a trip(1 hour drive) to Delonega yesterday to visit one of Georgia's premier vineyards - Wolf Mountain Vineyards. That's right! Georgia produces wine. Of course, the wine yard there is like one small fraction of the size of a vineyard in Napa valley(we saw one later in the day on the TV show: Dirty Jobs). I did the wine tasting. They had a couple of whites, which were the same except one was stored in French oak barrels and the other one was not. I can't make up my mind about the whites, I still think it has the smell of Chardonnay that I have always disliked, especially the first taste, but in subsequent tastes it went away somewhat. Their reds were solid but what I really enjoyed was their dessert wine: Seyval Demi-Sec. It was very sweet, but also incredibly smooth. I was surprised at how smooth it was. So we later bought a red and the dessert wine before we left. After the tasting we went the the winemaker's tour. They gave us a lot of information about how wine was made, and since this was the first time we've been to such a tour, most of the information was new to us. Some interesting facts:

1. the top part of the vine actually comes from a different original plant than the bottom part. The bottom part(the trunk?), is a north american species, where as the top part is a European species, but the 2 species are close enough that they can become one
2. they use a german bladder press to squeeze the juice out of the grapes with air pressure, that's right, they don't step on the grapes with bear feet anymore
3. they ferment the grape juice in giant stainless steel tanks in a temperature and air pressure controlled room. A lot of dirty work happens here as they have to "punch" the fruite down from the top, and also remove the grape peels left inside and wash the tanks after it's used
4. After fermenting the wine, they are barreled and aged for 8 months to 2 years. The insides of the barrels are charred to different degrees so as to the wine different oak flavors
5. the barrels has a hole on top called the bonghole, a bong is what is stuck into the bonghole to seal the barrel. I am not making this up. The bong is not air tight, it allows some air to come out from inside the barrel.

We enjoyed this trip, and really not bad for a road trip eventhough it's not far a drive. We would definitely come back some time, as there are still other vineyards we haven't visited.

Gary made a big announcement today on Wine Library TV. "We" are going to make a Community Wine. He's has a friend winemaker in Napa Valley who's going to let the vayniacs come and help make the wine: picking the grapes, crushing the grapes, fermenting and whatever else you have to do to make wine. There's going to be a label contest to pick the wine label and then there will be a party when the wine is sold. Cool idea. I'll definitely go help out if I get a cancel coming out to California.